BBC can produce some nice journalism in many topics. Unfortunately, Venezuela hasn't been very lucky with the kind of English-speaking BBC reporters it is getting. There is BBC Mundo - with Latin American reports with background on the area - and there is BBC English - represented by journalists who simply haven't got much insight about what is really happening in our country.
Today BBC News wrote that the candidate for the alternative forces, Henrique Capriles, is "against Chávez's left-wing policies". Curiously, that reporter didn't ask herself how come parties such as Causa R, the majority of people under Podemos and PPT and even Bandera Roja - of all parties - can stand behind Capriles. I wonder how good Sarah Grainger's Spanish is. Perhaps as good as Will Grant's?
Capriles has repeatedly said he supports a system similar to the one in place in Brazil now and he admires Lula. Of course, Lula has said he supports Chávez...Realpolitik and Reaispolitik above all: he would be foolish not to, Brazil's businessmen are making a good killing out of Venezuela's economic disarray and ever-growing dependency on oil.
So...what are "left-policies"? In reality Capriles would be in many ways left of Labour...and yet BBC says he is against left-winged policies...it does not specify which ones.
Capriles is not against "socialism". He is not "for capitalism". He has repeated time after time he goes beyond that. He represents democratic, pluralistic forces, forces that go from very left to very right. He himself would be left of most in Europe and definitely in Britain. And it is not as if Chávez were such a socialist, as El País reports.
BBC has had a terrible record when it comes to Venezuela. German and Dutch news agencies have done a much better job in portraying what is happening in my country. This is definitely not about BBC being "too lefty". The English-speaking part of BBC is sending journalists who do a very superficial work on Venezuela.